The French Mistress
by RexBerlin
Summary: Young Jason makes acquaintance with his new French tutor. The encounter will trigger a series of events that will change his views and expectations forever.
1. chapter 1

I was flunking at school. In French. All my grades were pretty average but French, I couldn't get it. I couldn't because it was all about Goddard. And his scary movies and how they kill in French. I was a very impressionable teenager.

My parents decided that I should have some help, so they posted an ad on the Village Voice for a French Tutor. So many people answered the advertisement, from young French hipsters making America to old Professors from Columbia. Everyone wanted to get some extra source of income, but more of that, everyone was tempted to come inside an apartment at Central Park but furthermore to get the type of connections that a tutor job on the Fifth Avenue would provide.

My parents chose a middle-aged French woman that used to coach singing students at Julliard for their French pronunciation. That was the school I was supposed to go after I finish High-School, and it came to help that I was already accepted, being my godmother a chairwoman at the schoolboard.

On Thursday, Giles opened the door when my future tutor rang. He took her to the study, where my mother was awaiting her to discuss the terms of the contract and the salary. Yes, a contract. My parents didn't believe in lawsuits, that's why they were assessed by their lawyers to cover any ambiguities. When Mme. Lagalice signed the contract, my mother called me and introduced me to her: -Jason, this is Mme. Lagalice, in her best French learned at several summers at the French Riviera. -Enchantée, said Mme. Lagalice, to which I answered and shook her hand. I had already brought my schoolbooks and dictionaries, which were already on the table. My mother left us and closed the sliding doors, not before Giles came and left the tea tray with some snacks on the side table.

"Let's start to know each other", -said Mme. Lagalice with a very strong accent.

She took off the upper part of her two-piece cantaloupe Chanel and left it gently over the couch. Her white blouse was buttoned until the top. She proceeded to open the top button and I could have a glimpse of her ivory neck. I could remark her blue eyes behind the glasses, but didn't have too much time to check because she sat right next to me and started to pass the book pages. Her smell was of violet, and she had her hair tied at the back with an almost invisible net.

She then checked my exams and shook her head. -Well, well, it looks we have a pretty difficult job here. These mistakes are not from a person that has taken four years French, but from a beginner. She stood up and went to the board and wrote: je suis/je sais.

I could see her now: she was thin and had a good figure. She wore panties, very unusual for the weather, but I guess it made her look serious and get a job at the house of the rich Vanderkerk family.

She started to explain me the difference, and I thought it to be very boring. I guessed she noticed it and stopped. –Well, she uttered, we are going to need some other approach, as I see you don't seem to understand or want to learn. She took a while and said: we are taking this class outside, I will ask your mother if she would allow to go out for a walk next time. For the time being I think we could do some exercises and concentrate on the learning of some verb conjugations.

That evening I was very excited before going to bed. It was a very new experience to me and I didn't know how to cope. I was the whole night thinking of her cherry lips instead and her severe attire, but mostly thinking of her black lack stilettos.

My mother agreed to let us go out to be a part of the lesson. Mme. Lagalice came next Tuesday, as she was to come twice a week during the spring.

She was dressed up less severe this time, only wearing a long skirt, a lace blouse with jacket and leather boots, ornamented with a carré Hermès around her neck. She left her attaché at the apartment, and we went down for a walk.

When we were crossing the street, she took my arm gently in order to step over a puddle built by the recent rain. We reached Central Park and she started talking.

"Now we will have your first lesson. We will review the essential vocabulary. Start with the car".

"La voiture", -I answered.

"Good".

"You know this was the place where John Lennon got killed?" -I said pointing the Dakota Building.

"Everybody knows that. And I think you like to divert your attention from the main subject and it is difficult for you to concentrate". I will have to be more severe with you in the future.

When she articulated that word, I felt a strange sensation like an itch all over my body. My parents were well born and bred, and never told me anything out of place, especially my mother. When she was angry at something, she will sit at the piano and play Mozart until her anger was gone, a very British aristocratic way to handle anger. My father would go to the tennis club and play for hours, come late and go straight to bed; a very American upper class way to deal with frustration.

I was never angry, nor happy do I think. Life was just passing by, but I had no special fun in any of the things I normally did. Being an only child does not let you compare to the happiness of your brothers and sisters or their moods. Birthdays were good, Christmas were better. School trips to exotic destinations were interesting. Lacrosse was right and summers in the Hamptons were nice. Nevertheless I always felt alone in a way, although I was a very popular guy at school and had many friends and acquaintances. I also got invited very often, especially by mothers and grand-mothers that wanted to match me with their daughters and grand-daughters, for the cachet of being half English and possible heir to a modest fortune, but more because our old Dutch family name opened every door in New York: restaurants, discotheques, country clubs, societies and company boards.

We went through cars, parks, plants, buildings and people in French. And I asked her with curiosity: -do you really need the job or you are doing it just for fun?

"I need money like everyone. I came to the city four years ago after I got divorced to an American in Boston. But you are very curious".

"I know I am".

"Well, let's finish for today and we will keep on talking next Tuesday. Let's go up".

Giles had already her leather attaché prepared when he opened the door. She said goodbye and surprised me with three kisses. I was very clumsy and didn't know how to react, so my hand touched her stomach as I tried to shake hands instead. The three kisses provoked a mixed up feeling of shame and shyness on me, the very same when I was younger and a very beautiful Hollywood actress came home with some friends of my parents and hugged me when greeting, making everyone uncomfortable and rolling their eyes as she screamed in a very Texan accent: "what a cute boy we have here".


	2. Chapter 2

The weekend was very busy for us. My parents had to check the house at the Hamptons so we travelled there Friday. When we took the ferry back, I could feel alternating fresh and warm air announcing the change of seasons. When we docked, I think I saw Mrs. Lagalice running down to take a taxi. I tried to follow her but she disappeared. I didn't mention it to my mother, as I was going to keep that and every future matter about her to myself, not only because I had the feeling it could eventually upset may parents, but because I started to think that it was something of my own. It was not very like me, for me to tell everything to them, including when I had my first wet dream (I know now I should had withheld it from my mother to avoid the scene that happened), but as I didn't have other male teenagers to talk to, I always trusted my mother and told her everything just because I was used to.

We had to be back by Saturday morning for Granny's Lunch at the Centennial, a kind of Spring Party she always organized at the beginning of summer. Our whole family was supposed to be there.

At the Party I met my cousins, and one in particular I was fond of: Alice, the daughter of my father's sister, Helena. We spent some time talking about music and literature, as per she was very fond of. When I felt a little tired, I asked my mother if I could go back to our apartment, and she agreed. Since it was walking distance and the chauffeur was waiting for my parents, I decided to walk back.

The Centennial was a very old building, and served first for a lunch club for many upper-class bankers and stockbrokers who lived in the Central Park area, using it as an excuse to come back "home" for lunch from Wall Street, but not really having to go home to eat with their wives and children. After the years it was sold to the Colonial Society, where my granny was the president, organizing banquets and charities.

As soon as I started to walk along Fifth Avenue, it started to rain, so I had to go back to the Fifty Fourth Street, as it was pouring from the north. I passed by the club's main entrance very near the building's wall, but stopped to fix my jacket; I happened to push slightly a green door that was very close to the side walk under a very discrete awning; then suddenly a small window opened and a man asked: "Number and Password?" As I was not prepared for such a situation I could only answer: "I am sorry, I didn't mean to…" The man closed the window immediately and the music that was playing in the background stopped. As I was fit, I keep on walking and thought it was a very strange place. I never noticed there was some kind of bar at this place, less a discotheque. As the rain started to stop, I had already reached Central Park. I crossed it and remember when I had my first walk with Mme. Lagalice. My stomach churned for a moment, and I started again to think of her. Somehow I could not be able to breathe normally and I had to sit on one wet bench. My pulse started to accelerate and I felt weak. Now I knew it. I had read enough literature to know that I was in love. I spent the rest of the days waiting to meet her on Tuesday.

On Sunday night my granny called and asked me for a favor. I should go back to the Centennial and get her purse, which she left locked at the office during Saturday lunch. I told her I had some errands to run and could only do it at Monday night, so she invited me to late dinner that day. On Monday I had to go to visit a friend of my father's who was ill, and give a check to his wife without his knowledge, as he was a very proud man and would had not accepted my father's help. I took the Metro-North from Grand Central at 9:15 am and departed to Spuyten Duyvil. It was a very sunny day, so I walked to his house, which we had visited quite often before he fell sick, as his pride would not let him go to travel to the City and call on us.

When I arrived to the Tudor-style house, his two daughters were outside at the front garden playing. They greeted me with a cheek kiss, as we always did, but suddenly their mother came out of the house wearing an apron. "Jason, I am so glad to see you" -she stated. "It is not only for your father's help; you now we all have you dear". "I know Mrs. Grey" –I responded.

Mr. Grey was once a very rich and successful man, but a crash at Wall Street had decimated most of his fortune, and a corruption scandal at his firm made his assets to be frozen. He still had some money and the house, as rich people will be always rich, no matter what. Some rented properties gave the family some income, and Mrs. Grey could revoke an injunction on her daughters' trusts, as they were almost of age and it was one of the family's main income source. "Wealthy will always be wealthy" –my granny said. "It's not about money, but connections".

We all went inside to have lunch, as she was preparing it. I handed her my father's envelope, which she hid discretely inside one of her pockets. "Mr. Grey is not on the mood today" –she added. This meant I was not to see him that day. After she came back from his closed studio we all went out to have a walk.

"Jason, these have been difficult times. Especially for him. He was accustomed to a lavish life, and for what it means, his soul is broken. But now he is probably more and more convinced that his family is the most important thing. His health is getting better as the girls grow up. They are very good at school, and we are still pretending to be what we were before. One lady comes to help me once a week, and that's the day when we invite our girls classmates, pretending everything is fine. You know we will repay your father when this is all over". I didn't have an answer to that, but I know this lady was truly a good person, as she showed it to be during good times. She was very socially engaged, not proud at all and had a golden heart. It was very difficult to see people we cared for in that kind of state. We stopped at a church and she hugged me for a really long time. I could not move, or I didn't want to, but knew it was for her to stop hugging me not for me release. She dried her tears and told me: "I know you are a very sensitive person, and sometimes life or the world are not what they seem, but sometimes it is difficult to realize things without having enough information or counsel. You know I am older than you, but I have lived enough and can give you some advice if you need. About everything". At that instant I remember a series of rumors that circulated about the Greys. Most of sexual content. It look to me really difficult to believe that at that moment such a lovely suburban housewife would be able of all those exploits that she was suspected of. She emphasized the word "everything". I guess gossips that I was gay or asexual have probably reached her, as I remember once her daughter Stella asked me if I was a happy person. Their parents probably disguised the word "gay" with happiness, so they would not need to talk about my sexual orientation. I said goodbye to Mrs. Grey and the girls, that were way behind us playing among themselves and left for the station. I was confused, excited and somehow sexually aroused.

Than evening, after finishing what I had to do, I finally went to the Centennial. It was already getting dark and I went straight to the Manager's office that was very close from the main entrance and had a huge window leading to the street. He tried to engage me in small-talk, as all bootlickers do. I answered him once or twice while he was trying to praise my grandmother and her way of leading the institution. I was so bored that I started to look outside the window. Suddenly a familiar silhouette wrapped in an overcoat came out probably out of one the neighboring alleys and entered a black car. I tried to lower my head to look better but at the very same time the Manager said in a very loud voice: "Here is your grandmother's purse", so I had to turn, and as I turned back the black Limousine was already gone.


End file.
